


a beginning

by ignitesthestars



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015)
Genre: Force Bond (Star Wars), Gen, Kylo Ren Redemption, of a sort
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-23
Updated: 2016-03-23
Packaged: 2018-05-28 12:19:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 884
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6328894
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ignitesthestars/pseuds/ignitesthestars
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p><b>Prompt:</b> Kylo's decision to return to the light/ having to face his mother and Luke again</p>
            </blockquote>





	a beginning

It isn’t **  
**

a choice.

There’s no moment of decision. There is no point where the veil falls from his eyes and the Light streams in.

-

It begins as curiosity. Every player in the galaxy tries to sink their claws into the scavenger girl, and yet she wiggles free each time. At first, he’d tried to write her off - a pawn to the light, another piece taken in by the promises of Luke Skywalker and - General Organa.

But they are threaded together, a bond woven from the Force in a way even he, with all of his power and all of his heritage can’t begin to understand. She has her own struggle with the Light and the Dark - he feels it thrash in her every time they meet. And that’s how he knows that, when she settles, when she finally comes to rest on one side, it’s all her.

No one took her by the hand and led her. No one strung her up and puppeteered her into place.

_Can you say the same?_

Her voice lingers. Not in his ears, but in his mind.

-

It continues as resentment.

It occurs to him that there are things he wants, and things the Supreme Leader wants, and that they are not the same things.

That shouldn’t feel like a revelation. Kylo Ren has lived in a state of discomfort at best for all of his existence. That’s the path to power, and he knows that, but there are all of these minor details–

Snoke speaks to him.The voice rasps into the corners of his mind, but where it once soothed all doubts, now it only irritates. _Do this_ , it whispers. _Do this do this do this._

He is careful to keep his own thoughts hidden. Outwardly, he responds. _Of course._

Inwardly - buried so deeply in the part of him that might have once lifted its head at the name Ben - he responds. _Why?_

-

It ends in exhaustion. It ends with him down half a leg, pain ripping through every nerve, and a mind free of whispers. It ends with an opening for the girl, a hole in Snoke’s defences bought at the price of the thing that called itself Kylo Ren.

It ends with him on the floor and the scavenger girl standing over him, screaming defiance at the Supreme Leader.

It ends with the Supreme Leader not so supreme after all, laid low by a slip of a girl with a double ended lightsaber and no one to tell her the Force doesn’t work the way she wants it to.

-

It doesn’t end

-

Skywalker is the one who carries him back. He would rather drag himself into some corner to die, but the Light wouldn’t allow for that.

The Light, he feels, is entirely too nosy for its own good.

There is an old pain etched into Skywalker’s bones, and it renews himself with each step forward.

“Leave me,” he mutters. All this agony, and nowhere near the strength to escape. “Isn’t guilt a path to the Dark? _Leave me_.”

Skywalker sighs. Not frustrated, just - resigned.

“What a mess we’ve made of things,” he says, and keeps walking.

-

She doesn’t come to his bedside.

She wants to. Even torn and frayed as he is, he can feel that. But General Organa didn’t become General Organa by giving into her feelings, so she stays in the door frame. Ready to make a quick exit.

He stares up at the ceiling. It seems like the safest bet. “Has the Republic decided to dispense with its policy against the death penalty?”

“It’s a law, not a policy.” Her voice is as dry as ever. Something in his chest cracks. “Not that there’s much of the Republic left, these days.”

It’s not accusatory. Just a statement of fact. It occurs to him that, for the first time in his life, the woman before him has no words.

It doesn’t taste like victory. It doesn’t feel like anything at all.

“I killed him.” He keeps his voice flat, like it’s being processed through a mask long since cracked. “How can you stand to look at me?”

There’s a waver. A ripple in the Force, in the iron will of Leia Organa. He expects her to leave. He expects her to slice into him, with words or whatever other weapon comes to hand. He expects to hurt.

“You’re my son.”

It echoes, in the depths of his memory. The phantom brush of a hand slides over his cheek.

“I have hated what you’ve done. Jedi code be hanged. But I love you. And there is nothing in this world that you, or anyone else, can do to change that.”

His jaw clenches. He keeps his eyes screwed shut. He’s not sure what he’ll do if he looks at her now.

“Then you are a fool.”

She snorts. “No one said the two were mutually exclusive.”

-

They fit him with a prosthetic. He expects pain, and there is some, but he’s given the same anaesthetic they’d pump into any precious Republic soldier. He’s not sure how to feel about that.

Consciousness is a fleeting companion. He drifts in and out.

 _Rest up_. There’s no telling who the voice belongs to. _You have work to do._

He thinks it might be him.


End file.
